(if) only you could understand is a virtual reality poem. Gesture-based interactions of words in these passages forwards the progression of each phrase. Words take on literal meaning, but can also take on connotative ideas through their interactivity.
Actions trigger events through grabbing and touching. The monochromatic white look highlights the visual aspect of language via each floating stanza which evolves throughout the experience:
You Twist my words
Things Change
But I can only Bend so far
Days turn into Night
There is always More
I can feel the Distance
You can Break me,
But only I can Destroy me
I am interested in giving users a new way to interact with language which augments typical usage. I am curious to understand how virtually manipulating words alters our perception of meaning through this new medium. I am interested in the supposed haptic aspect of VR as a medium and its mediated relationship to represented objects. I am heightening the physicality of these phrases but I am aware that they all still remain in the realm of artifice.
Project created with Unity using custom C# scripts for the interactions
Words modeled in Blender
Designed for the Oculus Rift
Exhibition at Toronto Digifest (Toronto, Canada) Spring 2019
Exhibition at Frederic Remington Art Museum (Ogdensburg, NY) for North Country Colleges Spring 2019
Exhibition at Clarkson Senior Showcase (Potsdam, NY) for Digital Arts & Sciences
© 2019